[…] to more discussion, ridicule, head-shaking, and even outrage in the twentieth century than the Church’s position regarding Black African priesthood denial. While most American mainstream religious denominations were tainted with irrational racist thinking at […]
[…] its early decades, the Colorado City group “wore fundamentalist Mormonism like a badge: severe buns, long skirts, black suits, faces scrubbed and plain, persisting in old fashioned dress even for the children.” In Colorado […]
[…] everywhere.” She showed me a map of the fallout. Utah and Nevada were blotted out and the black ink spread as far north as Canada and as far east as New York. She explained […]
I want to begin by reading a prose poem to give context to my remarks on Black bodies and reconciliation. It is entitled “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid. How soft is the blackness as it […]
[…] in Soweto. And those sixty minutes present an open window on the world of difference between “ black” South Africa and “white” South Africa. I was in Soweto that Sunday morning attending fast and […]
Hyrum Black had three wives. All of the people up and down Tudor Avenue knew that. In fact, I suppose all of the people in Salt Lake City knew that there were polygamists among […]
[…] multifaceted approach is needed to undo this bigotry. The 1978 reversal of the Church’s refusal to allow Black members to receive temple blessings and the 2020 pronouncement by President Russell M. Nelson urging members to […]
[…] genealogy and viewing family photos and felt that they could see in the family pictures evidence of black ancestors. Thus, according to the policy of the Church, the priesthood could not be given to […]
[…] uncomfortable for him calling it a cross, to the church wide policy of denying anyone who has black ancestry the priesthood and temple blessings which even though he is uncomfortable with it he does […]
[…] One” event, celebrating forty years since the LDS Church removed racial restrictions on temple and priesthood participation, Black Latter-day Saint podcaster and author Zandra Vranes asked white members to consider “what you or your […]